Elderly will no longer have to remove shoes at airports

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WASHINGTON — The US government is easing the airport screening process for travelers 75 and older, rolling out new rules just in time for the long Memorial Day holiday weekend, an official said Friday.

No longer will the elderly have to doff shoes, belts and jackets as they pass through security checkpoints at the region’s three major airports: John F. Kennedy International, La Guardia, and Newark Liberty airport.

“Seventy-five-plus is in the process of being rolled and customers will see it over the course of the summer and beyond,” said David Castelveter, chief spokesman of the Transportation Security Administration.

Castelveter said he did not have a precise timetable, but the New York rollout was expected to occur through the upcoming three-day weekend that unofficially kicks off the US summer vacation season.

The 75-plus measures were successfully tested in the Chicago, Denver, Orlando and Portland airports.

Last September the TSA decided to allow children 12 and under to pass through screening without removing their shoes.

The enhanced TSA airport screening was established after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks against the United States in which the attackers used airplanes as weapons.

The Al-Qaeda attacks claimed 2,976 lives in New York, Washington and Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Photo by Dean Shaddock (Flickr) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons